Life on board ESS

McStas 1.12b released

pkwi@risoe.dtu.dk — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 22:00:00 +0100

The McStas developer team is happy to report that the 1.12b release of our software is finally out.

You can get the installer packages from our download page

McStas 1.12b is mostly a bugfix release, but some new components and example instruments have been included. McStas 1.12b will be the VERY last release in the 1.x series.

Part of the reason for McStas 1.12b and its late arrival is our delay in releasing the next major version, McStas 2.0.

McStas 2.0 will be released late 2010 / early 2011 and will introduce new features that could break ceartain backward compatibility, hence we move from the 1.x series. We are also considering a replacement of the GUI and plotting tools for McStas 2.0.

For a complete list of changes in McStas 1.12b, see our CHANGES document.

The new relase was tested on these platforms:

Mac OS 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard (but should work on 10.4 and 10.3 also). Both 32 and 64 bit, Intel and PPC systems are supported.
Ubuntu Linux 9.10 Karmic Koala and 10.04 Lucid Lynx, 32 and 64 bit .deb's are provided. Note: Do not expect these debs to work on earlier releases or other distributions, e.g. Debian
Windows XP, Vista and 7, 32 and 64 bit. We only provide 32bit executables, but they are tested to run OK on 64 bit
On other systems, feel free to try our source distributions

Virtually fun?

pkwi@risoe.dtu.dk — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:00:00 +0100

As you may know, the 2010 McStas/VITESS user training workshop has been taking place at Backafallsbyn, Ven this week.

The workshop was generously sponsored by ESS Scandinavia, NMI3 and Risø DTU

The participants have been very busy working with and learning to use McStas and VITESS

Enjoying local nature

And also visitied remains of Scandinavia's first ever large scale research facility, Thyco Brahe's observatory.

Even the weather was decent most of the days

- And it seemed that everyone not only virtually, but really learned something and had a lot of fun! :)

McStas / VITESS user training workshop 2010

pkwi@risoe.dtu.dk — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:00:00 +0100

The McStas and VITESS teams are happy to announce the joint

*** McStas / VITESS user training workshop 2010 ***

To take place at Backafallsbyn in the Swedish island of Ven, May 17th-21st.

The workshop is a school in order to train technical staff and instrument scientists in using Monte-Carlo code to design better neutron devices and instruments. The programme is split into sessions dedicated to different parts (optics, sample environment, detectors, ...). If you work in one of these areas, and feel like simulating it, then this school is for you, especially if you've never done so before.

Sponsorship / Participation / Cost

Generous support from our sponsors
ESS Scandinavia
NMI3 / FP7
Risø DTU
has made it possible to offer sponsored lodging and participation for up to 25 people. It should be noted that particpants from the EU will have preference, since EU sponsors part of the workshop. The 5 supplementary seats with full registration fee required are fully open. If more than 25 people show an interest, a fee will be announced for further participation, that is the first 25 registrations will be free, the up-to-5 following will require accommodation charge (about 600 euros for the entire school).

We would like all participants to attend, as far as possible, the entire school.

All participants must arrange and pay their own transport to Copenhagen Airport. We will arrange joint transportation from CPH to the Island of Ven.

Further information

Please refer to http://www.essworkshop.org for further information and registration.

Best regards,

Emmanuel Farhi (ILL)
Peter Willendrup (Risø DTU)
Erik Knudsen (Risø DTU)
Klaus Lieutentant (IFE/Kjeller)
Uwe Filges (PSI)
Linda Udby (University of Copenhagen)

Software & Instrumentation @ ICNS

pkwi@risoe.dtu.dk — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:00:00 +0100

If you are an attendee of the ICNS in Knoxville from next monday and interested in software and/or instrumentation, these conference sessions might be of specific interest to yo:

Session G - Instrument Concepts/Techniques/DevicesSession H - Sample EnvironmentSession I - SoftwareSession J - Facilities/Source Development

(direct links to relevant pages at the conference website)

- I for one am going to those sessions! :)

Also remember that the McStas team is giving a workshop on sunday - participation is completely free.

See you in Knoxville,

- Peter Willendrup

McStas satellite workshop @ ICNS, Knoxville

pkwi@risoe.dtu.dk — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0100

The McStas team is happy to announce that a McStas event has been arranged in connection with ICNS 2009 in Knoxville, TN.

The event will take place

May 3rd 2009, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, room 300 c/d, Knoxville convention centre.

The preliminary program is

Morning session: 9:00-9:05Welcome by the McStas team 9:05-9:15Overview of new features expected in McStas 2.0 9:15-9:25Overview of recent virtual experiment studies performed 9:25-10:357 x 10-minute talk/feedback inputs from McStas users 10:35-10:50Coffee break 10:50-12:007 x 10-minute talk/feedback inputs from McStas users

Afternoon session:

14:00-14:10Brief McStas introduction for new users 14:10-17:00Hands on session / installation help for new users

Registration

For more information and registration for the event, see the event page.

McStas - a collaborative neutron simulation code

pkwi@risoe.dtu.dk — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0100

A new release of McStas (v. 1.12a) was released on april 3rd 2009, freely downloadable from http://www.mcstas.org/download .

McStas is a world-known, open-source, collaborative software for simulation of neutron scattering instruments and experiments.

Since 1998 McStas has been hosted at Risø DTU (previously known as Risø) near Roskilde in Denmark, for many years in collaboration with ILL in Grenoble and now also in partnership with NBI, University of Copenhagen.

Since its birth, McStas has been used in major neutron instrumentation efforts, including

FRM-II reactor in Munich, GermanyOPAL at ANSTO near Sydney, Australia The ISIS second target station (TS2) project in Chilton, UKSNS at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USAJ-PARC in Tokai, Japan

- But also in big renewal programs like the ILL Millenium Program plus all kinds of other instrumentation projects at the PSI, LLB, HMI, FZJ, and other neutron sources.

Being an open-source (Gnu Public License) software, McStas allows its users do develop their own models in the framework of the package - and to contribute them back to the project. By this combined effort of the McStas team and the McStas users, we now have ~ 100 components in one, comprehensive package.

McStas includes models of neutron sources, beam optics, detectors and also sophisticated models of many of the samples typically studied at neutron scattering instruments. Having models of both neutrons, instrument and sample allows to perform Virtual Experiments, an area where McStas is indisputedly the strongest solution in the market.

Virtual experiments makes McStas very useful for teaching and training purposes, a neutron scattering course has been given at University of Copenhagen every year since 2005. The students learn about the theory of neutron scattering, build op their own virtual instruments and perform experiments - and finally take a trip to e.g. PSI in Switzerland to also scatter real world neutrons.

McStas was originally born in the Øresund region - but has become a common project and an essential tool for neutron scatterers on the entire globe.

If you feel like trying our software, we recommend our Ubuntu live-dvd - to be run without installation - directly from your DVD drive!